Doug Schmell cashing in his vaulted massive collecion. Poll: Is this the top?

[tth2]

Am I missing something? The book has 3 strong corners and a perfect spine.

 

It sure does - if you're only looking at the scan of the back cover.

 

 

Are there defects that I don't see?

 

:facepalm:

Roy is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

[VintageComics]

Roy;

 

Turn the book over and take a look at the front cover instead.

 

Although the back cover definitely looks like a 9.8, the front cover with the combination of the folded overhang along the top edge, soft top right corner, nicks down the right edge, over pressing to the point of bending the bottom staple, and not sure what's going on in the top staple area certainly takes the book out of the NM range for me.

 

Umm, I'm pretty sure I'm a fairly decent grader. I don't just grade back covers. Not the best, but good enough to make a living out of it.

 

You guys are looking at a scan that is at least double the normal size of the book and trying to tell me that the book doesn't even look like a 9.4? For anyone that believes this, please sell me all of your Silver Age 9.4 books that look like this. I will buy them at full price from you immediately.

 

I count 4 or 5 small flecks of colour missing. If you add them up it doesn't even come to what one spine stress would measure. And the paper is still there, even on that soft right hand upper corner. The ink is just flecked off.

 

The overhang is just distracting because of the light from the scanner. I'm betting if you held the book in hand (or just coloured it brown the way it would look in hand) you might not even notice it. The overhang is NOT folded over. It's slightly bent, and even bend might be too strong a word. It looks like a thumb disturbance from putting the book in a mylar.

 

And wow, the bottom staple got bent from pressing? Really? Do you actually believe that or do you just hate pressing so much that you had to spin it that way? Metal is stronger than paper so the staple would likely break through all 17 folds before it bent while a book was getting pressed, but that don't matter. Just throw it out there anyway for people to run with.

 

The staple was probably bent during production because in order to make a staple fit you need to support it from both ends (inside and outside). If a staple is just pressing against the paper with no support on one side, it just goes right through the paper...which is how they get it to puncture the paper in the first place.

 

The top staple to me is the worst defect of the bunch, but then we are looking at a double sized scan and don't have the book in hand.

 

And just so I don't type it out, here is a post I made last week in regards to grading from a scan...you just can't do it because there is more to grading than 2 dimensional defects.

 

I believe that they take into consideration the entire appeal of the book...smell, feel, bounce, gloss.

 

I think what most people call a "pedigree bump" is usually just intangible qualities that can't be seen or felt through a slab that might give the book an edge if it's a "tweener" book where the grade is borderline between two grades.

 

You can't tell gloss in a 2 dimensional scan, you need a 3 dimensional angle to notice gloss, so that is another factor.

 

Books all smell, look and feel different and a book that smells and feels like a brand new book with a wonderful bounce/suppleness to it, or has blinding gloss even though it is structurally the same as another comparable book that doesn't feel as good might actually grade higher simply because of those invisible but positive characteristics.

 

If you've ever felt a Church book and compared it to a San Fran you'd know what I'm talking about. Both are structurally awesome books that are well preserved but the San Fran books have a certain stiffness to them for some reason that the Church books (that I have felt) do not.

 

The two books, even if they are the same issues from the same time period may feel and handle distinctly differently.

[VintageComics]

Am I missing something? The book has 3 strong corners and a perfect spine.

 

It sure does - if you're only looking at the scan of the back cover.

 

 

Are there defects that I don't see?

 

:facepalm:

Roy is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

 

Is that like when you chime in on Heritage threads like you're on the payroll?

 

 

I already said yesterday that there are plenty of overgraded books out there but I didn't think this wasn't a particularly one to build a case.

[MrBedrock]

It's a no doubt 9.7.

 

Do you think it's a 9.71 or a 9.69?

9.74. If the overhang were perfectly flat then we might be in the 9.82-9.83 territory.

[MrBedrock]

Since Doug is known to have tried to pass a microtrimmed book by CGC, what are the chances there are others in his collection that slipped through? I think that any buyer grabbing one of these comics is really taking a risk (unless they just don't care as long as the label is blue). I'm actually surprised that Heritage would take the risk of selling the collection of a guy known to have tried to cheat CGC. Isn't there any liability for them if a buyer cracks/resubs and the book comes back trimmed?

 

Mike

I'm always amused at the notion that someone who submits trimmed books to The CGC is therefore trying to "cheat CGC". They are not trying to "cheat CGC". They are paying The CGC to provide a service. The CGC is supposed to be the expert on detecting trimming. The hobby pays The CGC a ton of money to detect our trimmed books. If The CGC somehow overlooks a trimmed book The CGC are not being cheated. In fact the submitter is being cheated. The hobby is being cheated. But The CGC is not being cheated.

 

 

[mysterio]

Since Doug is known to have tried to pass a microtrimmed book by CGC, what are the chances there are others in his collection that slipped through? I think that any buyer grabbing one of these comics is really taking a risk (unless they just don't care as long as the label is blue). I'm actually surprised that Heritage would take the risk of selling the collection of a guy known to have tried to cheat CGC. Isn't there any liability for them if a buyer cracks/resubs and the book comes back trimmed?

 

Mike

I'm always amused at the notion that someone who submits trimmed books to The CGC is therefore trying to "cheat CGC". They are not trying to "cheat CGC". They are paying The CGC to provide a service. The CGC is supposed to be the expert on detecting trimming. The hobby pays The CGC a ton of money to detect our trimmed books. If The CGC somehow overlooks a trimmed book The CGC are not being cheated. In fact the submitter is being cheated. The hobby is being cheated. But The CGC is not being cheated.

 

 

Nicely put!

[VintageComics]

It's a no doubt 9.7.

 

Do you think it's a 9.71 or a 9.69?

9.74. If the overhang were perfectly flat then we might be in the 9.82-9.83 territory.

 

Do you reduce points for the glare?

 

[MrBedrock]

It's a no doubt 9.7.

 

Do you think it's a 9.71 or a 9.69?

9.74. If the overhang were perfectly flat then we might be in the 9.82-9.83 territory.

 

Do you reduce points for the glare?

I don't. But it sounds like some do. Who knows if The CGC does or not.

FWIW, glare has the potential to become one of the big divisive issues of this hobby.

[MrBedrock]

Roy [or anybody] is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

That is one of the most ridiculous equations regularly made on these boards.

It just as ridiculous as the statement -

So-and-so [tth2] is a collector. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

 

Both statements are meaningless.

[Straw-Man]

Roy [or anybody] is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

That is one of the most ridiculous equations regularly made on these boards.

It just as ridiculous as the statement -

So-and-so [tth2] is a collector. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

 

Both statements are meaningless.

 

your FACE is meaningless.

[MrBedrock]

Roy [or anybody] is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

That is one of the most ridiculous equations regularly made on these boards.

It just as ridiculous as the statement -

So-and-so [tth2] is a collector. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

 

Both statements are meaningless.

 

your FACE is meaningless.

That is totally unfair!

[JohnFranklin]

Back to the specific TTA book http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7063&lotIdNo=67353#Photo, for the sake of arguement would someone provide at least two links to 9.8 books with one badly pretty rounded corner like the TTA book in question? I am not saying they dont' exist, I simply don't recall ever seeing one.

[VintageComics]

Back to the specific TTA book http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7063&lotIdNo=67353#Photo, for the sake of arguement would someone provide at least two links to 9.8 books with one badly rounded corner like the TTA book in question? I am not saying they dont' exist, I simply don't recall ever seeing one.

 

I had an FF #48 grade a 9.8 with a corner like that.

 

That corner is not badly rounded. It's just a colour flake off the corner. While not the strongest 9.8 I still have no problem calling that book a 9.8...or better put, if i was submitting the book I'd expect it to have a shot at 9.8.

 

It seems like people don't want any defects on a 9.8 but you are allowed defects in CGC 9.8, the just are not supposed to accumulate over a certain criteria or size.

 

It's not like the book is any where close to 9.4 territory. It might be a coin toss for 9.6 but that is a very, very fine line.

[DrWatson]

Back to the specific TTA book http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7063&lotIdNo=67353#Photo, for the sake of arguement would someone provide at least two links to 9.8 books with one badly rounded corner like the TTA book in question? I am not saying they dont' exist, I simply don't recall ever seeing one.

Not to mention what looks like SCS along the top edge.

[JohnFranklin]

Back to the specific TTA book http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7063&lotIdNo=67353#Photo, for the sake of arguement would someone provide at least two links to 9.8 books with one badly rounded corner like the TTA book in question? I am not saying they dont' exist, I simply don't recall ever seeing one.

 

I had an FF #48 grade a 9.8 with a corner like that.

 

That corner is not badly rounded. It's just a colour flake off the corner. While not the strongest 9.8 I still have no problem calling that book a 9.8...or better put, if i was submitting the book I'd expect it to have a shot at 9.8.

 

It seems like people don't want any defects on a 9.8 but you are allowed defects in CGC 9.8, the just are not supposed to accumulate over a certain criteria or size.

 

It's not like the book is any where close to 9.4 territory. It might be a coin toss for 9.6 but that is a very, very fine line.

 

Okay, so it's probably not badly rounded, however, I would still like to see a couple of examples of 9.8's with a rounded corner similar to the TTA in question.

[VintageComics]

I looked for a scan but couldn't seem to find one of my old book.

 

 

[Flaming_Telepath]

Money laundering through comics. I'm coming around more to the idea every day.

 

I didn't even begin to entertain that scenario. I was thinking more about some rich Arab prince who thinks Jean Grey is hot.

 

 

I've said it as a joke a bunch of times. But if people keep spending millions of dollars on comic books, it gets less tinfoil-hatty. It reminds me of the way that Joe Pesci explains it in Lethal weapon II - You pay dirty cash to the auction houses for the books, then immediately relist them and get a nice clean check from a legit company.

I have doubts whether Heritage would accept payment via suitcases full of cash.

 

Really?

 

Really?

[Flaming_Telepath]

Am I missing something? The book has 3 strong corners and a perfect spine.

 

It sure does - if you're only looking at the scan of the back cover.

 

 

Are there defects that I don't see?

 

:facepalm:

Roy is a dealer. It's not good for him to acknowledge things that might rock the boat.

 

I'm a dealer and I'll rock the boat plenty.

 

It's not a 9.8.

 

End of.

[VintageComics]

Here it is. I submitted this book with every expectation of getting a 9.8. Notice the glare on the overhang at the top of the book as well. The book was killer in hand. You just can't grade accurately from a scan, especially when it comes to colour breaking defects because scanners all represent them differently.

 

[VintageComics]

It's not a 9.8.

 

End of.

 

But it is a CGC 9.8.